A new analysis shows that the adoption of tablets in the enterprise, led largely by Apple's iPad, is having an accelerating impact on the decline corporate printing.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley said Tuesday in a note to investors that the rapid ascent of tablets for business use has adversely affected printing by more than it had originally predicted. Last February, a Blue Paper from the company predicted an 8-15 percent decline in printing, but a new survey shows cuts as deep as 16 percent due to increased tablet use combined and company measures to curtail printing.

The firm surveyed 700 tablet users in the U.S. about how the devices affect their printing behavior at work. 46 percent of respondents said they printed less, with 13 percent indicating that they printed 16 percent less after owning a tablet.

41 percent of tablet users said they viewed print reduction as a "main benefit" of tablet adoption, according to the survey. Among respondents who said they printed significantly less, 79 percent chose decreased printing as the key benefit of the tablet.

As a result of the move away from printing, analyst Katy Huberty predicts a roughly 3 percent decline in developed market laser supplies. She noted that Lexmark, Ricoh and Konica Minolta, which all have exposure in corporate laser printing, are the most "structurally challenged" by the drop. Fujifilm, Canon and HP could also see minor negative impacts.

Huberty went on to claim that the increase of "bring your own device" corporate policies will put "rising pressure" on printing in the enterprise. A Morgan Stanley survey of CIOs from last month revealed that 48 percent of them expect to allow tablets on company networks this year, up from 16 percent last January. That number is expected to increase even further to 66 percent by January 2013.

Company efforts to cut back on printing have also contributed significantly to a reduction. The investment bank's survey showed that 75 percent of participants printed less after their employers instituted print curtailment tactics.

CIOs have indicated plans to cut print-related spending by as much as 34 percent this year, Huberty reported. By comparison, an earlier survey from April 2011 had suggested plans for an 18 percent drop on average over 12 months.

As evidence of tablet devices' direct impact on the printing industry, Huberty pointed out that printing and writing paper demand in the U.S. has fallen 9 percent since the iPad was first released in April 2010. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, paper demand is down a total of 24 percent since it reached a peak in 2006.

The analyst described tablet penetration in the enterprise as "nascent," while noting that rapid growth is taking place. Citing figures from IDC, she noted that the percentage of tablets in the enterprise as compared to the entire tablet market has risen to 5.6 percent, up from 0.8 percent in first quarter of 2010, the quarter before Apple released the iPad.

Huberty also quoted Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer as saying the iPad has experienced "unprecedented adoption in business" during a recent quarterly earnings conference call. According to Oppenheimer, nearly all of the top Fortune 500 companies are actively using iPads.

According to one recent enterprise study, Apple has a dominant market share in the industry. Enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology found the iPad to have an unrivaled 96 percent share of tablets in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Apple sold a record 15.43 million iPads in the December 2011 quarter. Estimates from one market research firm noted Apple's global market share during the period as 58 percent.

I realize this suit is about camera tech and image previews but it does't change the fact that Apple is serious about protecting their IP and they obviously don't care about kicking Kodak while they're down.

I used to be a software consultant at AT&T Wireless and let's just say each person just working on the Call Center Suite and testing [excluding the actual consultants--just regular full-time AT&T Staff] would print out reams of Call Center Documentation Updates, two to three times a week.

The Doc was between 500-1000 pages. Instead of printing out an Addendum, they'd rip out a fresh copy.

They wasted so much paper. They are the perfect example of using an iPad and getting documentation updates via an enterprise app.

Uhm, no. Do you own an iPad? The correct answer is: because you can hold it, view it and share it, there and then.

I'm not in the corporate world, but I'm certainly printing less since I bought an iPad, especially when it comes to presentations.

I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.

The other issue is that Bluetooth Printing is not supported with iPhone or iPad...
My wife was never so disappointed in her iPhone as when she couldn't print to her Pogo!
(you can do it via a Mac but that is clumsy and cumbersome)

I hadn't thought of this before but I can clearly see how a tablet would reduce the need for a lot of printed materials in ways the emails and network shares couldn't.

Actually, it is rather obvious, if you think about it. Have you ever seen anyone on Star Trek working off of a paper document or printing out a report? The future has been plain to see for several decades...

I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.

So why are documents on the devices in the first place?

They should be held on secure servers with iPads/iPhones accessing them remotely via an encrypted connection.

This has the added benefit of wasting as much paper as you want with printing from the server.

As an IT manager you are there to solve problems, not create them.

Better than my Bose, better than my Skullcandy's, listening to Mozart through my LeBron James limited edition PowerBeats by Dre is almost as good as my Sennheisers.

The business world is incredibly slow moving. For years people have been complaining about printing support but they don't realize the iphone and ipad are devices of the future, where printing is marginalized.

This is a small part of the problem, the business culture is full of inefficiencies, ugly, bloated, with crappy UX software and dogma. Thankfully the recent inroads of consumer products and mentality in the BW, spearheaded by iphone and ipad, will spread the 'consumer oriented' culture.

I hardly print anymore on Apple machines. My important docs on a Mac get printed to Yojimbo and organized, or they are printed as an attachment and mailed to myself and others. Received on the iPad, they are pulled into iBooks or goodreader and organized.

Perhaps the iPad should simply present itself as printer on the network or as an attached printer when connected to a computer now iPad is being used that way.

I hardly print anymore on Apple machines. My important docs on a Mac get printed to Yojimbo and organized, or they are printed as an attachment and mailed to myself and others. Received on the iPad, they are pulled into iBooks or goodreader and organized.

Perhaps the iPad should simply present itself as printer on the network or as an attached printer when connected to a computer now iPad is being used that way.

Mmmm... Now, there's an idea!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Uhm, no. Do you own an iPad? The correct answer is: because you can hold it, view it and share it, there and then.

I'm not in the corporate world, but I'm certainly printing less since I bought an iPad, especially when it comes to presentations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigbadrobbo

I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.

While it may be true that 'most' corporate printers do not support printing from the iPad (I don't know - and really don't care), I don't think that's the reason why the iPad leads to less printing.

If you're in the office (where the corporate printers are), you probably use your desktop or laptop PC rather than your iPad. You use your iPad remotely. So whether or not corporate printers recognize the iPad won't make much difference. Even if the iPad worked with every single printer out there, I don't think it would change anything.

The reason for the drop is that people who travel often print out a ton of stuff to take with them when they're traveling (or going to a customer's site, or to the office down the hall, etc). If they have their information accessible on the iPad, there's no need to print out reams of paper - they can just look up what they need to know as they need it without printing (and it's probably quicker than flipping through 500 pages of dead trees, too).

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Macs should offer in the print dialog ... Print to Printer, PDF or iPad. The latter send the PDF directly to the iPad of choice

Or Apple gets their act together on getting Mac Apps into the loop with iCloud file sharing. THe substructure is there they just need the applications in the mix. Once they get it going then they will release the SDK for Office etc to add it as well

I've never actually figured out why iOS does not support printing to a network printer. It seems like really basic OS functionality that would be easy to implement. Anyone have a simple explanation for that?

I've never actually figured out why iOS does not support printing to a network printer. It seems like really basic OS functionality that would be easy to implement. Anyone have a simple explanation for that?

They do with AirPrint. You can also print via sending the print jobs to either an internet-based service or having a local CUPS server handle the print jobs. The reason why this isn't a default function to all network printers directly from iDevices is that each iDevice would need to have the print drivers installed. This just isn't feasible.

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I've never actually figured out why iOS does not support printing to a network printer. It seems like really basic OS functionality that would be easy to implement. Anyone have a simple explanation for that?

??? We print to an old HP 5700 attached to the AirPort Express from Macs, iPads and iPhones.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

They do with AirPrint. You can also print via sending the print jobs to either an internet-based service or having a local CUPS server handle the print jobs. The reason why this isn't a default function to all network printers directly from iDevices is that each iDevice would need to have the print drivers installed. This just isn't feasible.

I see. I knew about AirPrint, but none of my printers support it, and so I print via one of my Macs. Is the printer driver issue that much of a problem? Detecting a network printer and then downloading and installing the appropriate driver doesn't seem like that much of an overhead for the device. Assuming the drivers existed of course.

??? We print to an old HP 5700 attached to the AirPort Express from Macs, iPads and iPhones.

I'm surprised that Apple hasn't used iOS in there AirPort products yet. Add to that 8GB NAND flash and the system could load the Combo Update for multiple Macs on a LAN and even have the right print drivers and a CUPS server built in for printing that gets around AirPrint while making their routers more attractive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by muppetry

I see. I knew about AirPrint, but none of my printers support it, and so I print via one of my Macs. Is the printer driver issue that much of a problem? Detecting a network printer and then downloading and installing the appropriate driver doesn't seem like that much of an overhead for the device. Assuming the drivers existed of course.

It's surely possible but logistically it's not the best option especially when there are easier and cheaper methods that aren't going to take up storage on your pocketable device.

Consider printing from an iDevice, this is an aging request. It's still important, just not as important as putting all needed print drivers in the device.

And it's not like AirPrint printers are expensive. I bet many iDevice users have them and don't even realize it. On HP's site they start at $79.

Fair points. Although I won't be buying any more cheap HP printers - complete junk in my recent experience. Even my more expensive HP 2605 turns out to have some really bad design flaws - I have to dismantle it regularly to clean the unprotected laser optics.

Fair points. Although I won't be buying any more cheap HP printers - complete junk in my recent experience. Even my more expensive HP 2605 turns out to have some really bad design flaws - I have to dismantle it regularly to clean the unprotected laser optics.

I print once every 6 months but I just kit the FedEx/Kinkos or UPS Store.

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Airlines are starting to use iPads instead of traditional paper operating manuals and flight documents. That's 12,000 sheets of paper weighing about 70 pounds per pilot that needed to be updated every month. And the FAA has approved in-cockpit use of iPads even during takeoff and landing.